Story Bytes Part Three: Seeing Is Believing

Growing up should not mean the automatic abandon of imagination. Too often I hope that I never forget what it’s like to create fictional worlds of fantasy in my head. I want to let my eyes look from new perspectives because at the end of my life I want to have seen everything.

Before I fell in love with the city of Sevilla, I could have never fathomed such a magical place. To everyone else, that small Andalucian city in the south of Spain, was just that: a small Andalucian city in the south of Spain.

Until you step inside its lines, Sevilla is just the name of a place that may never mean anything to you. The way its atmosphere embodies this indescribable sense of excitement and pure joy, both in its earth and its people, is a rarity in the nature of a city. Somehow, the reality of such a place stretched my sense of imagination, and after living there for a few months it feels as though there are no limits to what I can see.

After leaving Sevilla, I try to look at old places in new ways. I imagine my own backyard placed somewhere on the edge of a Sevillan neighborhood, or I picture palm trees in place of the looming oaks on my college campus. Some days I take the train into the city and pretend that I’m riding through the Swiss mountains.

If there is one thing I’ve learned from the pictures in my head, it’s this: seeing is believing. Though it may feel like a dream sometimes, it looks like reality.